When UCLA’s new chancellor is selected, I hope the UC Board of Regents sends up a puff of white smoke. Actually, the election of a new Pope is more open than this process, in that we often know who the candidates are.
The secrecy of the names and negotiations for a post of such critical and long-term importance to the campus is the vestige of another age, when secrecy was the default position for anything sensitive.
We have seen the folly of this in government – even in the university’s own processes lately – and the backlash that follows it.
The only clearly stated rationale for secrecy is that candidates may not want their current employers to know they are looking for another position.
That may be a justifiable reason for account executives or middle-managers quietly looking to switch jobs, surfing Monster.com. It shouldn’t apply when the stakes are so high in identifying the right person to lead the campus.
These candidates are highly regarded and accomplished people, one would hope, who can expect to be recruited by other institutions. It is no secret these people are being recruited, and it is not in the interests of the campus to keep these people a secret.
It should be noted that UCLA only made public the person who was apparently the top candidate – Deborah Freund, Syracuse University’s provost of academic affairs – after she withdrew.
But she had openly been a candidate for the presidency of the University of Arizona a few months earlier, so I guess her employer already knew she was looking.
Arizona is one of the approximately 70 percent of American universities that conduct open or partially open presidential searches, according to a University of New Mexico study.
Another is Harvard, which sent out a letter to all alumni that said they are “seeking general advice and specific nominations” for their open presidency and promising to have a series of consultations with faculty, student and alumni groups “to inform our deliberations.”
If our pre-eminent private university can do that, why can’t our pre-eminent public university?
No one is calling for a democratic election or a popularity contest. It is the regents’ solemn fiduciary duty to the people of California to choose carefully and wisely, without political influence or consequence.
But that does not mean that the people most affected, the students, alumni, donors, faculty, staff and administrators of UCLA, should not have broader input, including knowing who the finalists are.
One general meeting was held on campus on Dec. 8, 2005, to help determine “the distinct needs of UCLA.” I don’t know who or how many attended, but is one open-invitation meeting held almost six months ago sufficient for input from the campus community?
UCLA has certain natural disadvantages. It’s part of a system that governs 10 campuses and three labs, without a home-based board of influential trustees, in a polyglot community in which its achievements are not always readily acknowledged. And it’s got an overriding need for a chancellor who can hit the ground running, without a lengthy learning curve.
The needs of UCLA are indeed distinct, and the regents should already know them. Those of us who have studied here, worked here, given money here, and care deeply about the future here actually might have something useful to offer in the selection of someone to meet those needs.
Charles is a former UCLA vice chancellor.